Making Lemonade

What do you do with the title "Golden Heart Finalist"?

You submit like mad, trying to make lemonade while the lemons are still fresh. You know, strike while the iron is hot, make hay while the sun shines, do unto others as...no, that one is for something else.

Within days of finding out I had finaled, I sent an email to the editor who I had submitted my manuscript to well before the announcement, hoping to increase her interest.

But I couldn't stop there.

Borrowing the idea of a fellow GH Finalist, I whipped up some address labels with my new title boldly imprinted beneath my name in romantic red. That ought to get some attention, I figured. I did some research and settled on a list of my top six agents and promptly submitted to them. Five by snail mail, one by email.

A day later and the email submission was responded to. Send us a partial. Woohoo! Wow - that was fast but then that's the beauty of email.

A week later and the first of the snail mail responses came. This agent was kind enough to reject me by telling me there was nothing wrong with what I had submitted, it just wasn't her cup of tea. Cool. I can deal with that. I know fantasy romance isn't for everyone and I'd already been rejected by an agent who liked the work but didn't feel the market was strong enough. I just shrug that stuff off and move on. Someone will fall madly in love with Heart of Fire and find it a home. I feel that in my bones.

(By the way, you can read an excerpt of Heart of Fire on my website - just click on books and check it out.)

I tally up what's still out there and now I am waiting on four agent submissions, one agent request, and one editor submission. It's enough to make you crazy, if you think about it too much.

My philosophy is not to think about it. Well, not to obsess about it. Sure, I dream the editor will call and want all four books in the series. I imagine all five editors will love me like a fat kid loves cake. This is my world, after all. I'm not going to sit around, staring out the window, dreaming of being rejected.

Anyway, I'm off to Spain with my hubby and parents to appease our collective wanderlust for a few weeks. While I'm gone, I'll be dreaming about what the mail will hold when I return.

And for some reason, I think there may be a matador hero in my future...